Otium cum dignitate

Retirement came easily, more easily than I had expected or ever planned. When I began my teaching career in 1987, retirement was far from my thoughts, as it should have been. The end was far too final and much too far away to be considered. In subsequent years, when retirement was mentioned or experienced by colleagues, I replied that this was not in the realm of possibility for me, and, besides, what would I do? How would I spend my time? How could I ever afford it? I would often say that I would teach as long as I could and they would have to drag me out of the classroom.

 

Fast forward to 2021. The world was different, and I had changed, too, having grown older, wiser, and more experienced, but frustrations, disillusionment, and the constant grind was wearing me down. Teaching and learning and life were nothing like they were back in the '80s. Sometimes I thought that those issues which distracted from my ability to make a positive difference came from my failure to completely grow and adapt to the world changing around me. Other times I thought the opposite, that I was doing the right thing in the best way, and the world was failing to conform to me. I guess this statement says a lot about the accuracy of my thoughts.

Beginning around 2015, teaching started to become more difficult for me, socially, physically, emotionally, and practically. Demands from students, parents, and administrators continued to increase. There were increasingly more distractions, more discouraging criticism from local, state, and national politics, leading to less accountability for real growth by students, resulting in much less satisfaction and enjoyment.

My final day in the classroom was Thursday, March 12, 2020. The reports of the spread of COVID-19 were becoming more dire and frightening. My school division closed all its schools for that Friday (yes, the 13th) before spring break scheduled for the next week. They would soon add an extra week to spring break in an attempt to give the spread of this disease time to level off and begin to decline. The pandemic was upon us. We would not return to school for the rest of the school year. Attempts were made to provide work and enrichment, but very few students participated. We all know the stories.

For the 2020-2021 school year, a year like no other for teachers, students, and parents, I spent the first semester teaching online from home. Because of health concerns exacerbated by some medical conditions, I opted to isolate myself from possible exposure to the coronavirus. Teaching remotely was not an easy task. I had some students (some physically attending school and just as many tuning in from home) at my high school and, due to declining enrollment, others at a neighboring middle school. This teaching assignment with two schools give rise to different class schedules, nine different preparations, different online platforms, and wholly different expectations. To be sure, it became tedious, overwhelming, and wholly unsustainable.

For the second semester I was among the lucky few who, with a letter from my physician, were granted the extension to continue teaching from home. I continued to press forward through a heavily-adapted curriculum, trying to remain upbeat and positive, and even offering after-school activities for those few students who wanted to keep the Latin Club alive. But I knew that I could not continue like this, then things started to happy quickly. At an annual meeting with our financial advisor, I commented, half-jokingly, that I would like to retire, an idea I didn't think possible because of the financial uncertainties. He crunched the numbers and said confidently, "Yeah, you can do that. We can make that work." I was surprised and even relieved, but I did not hesitate. My reply was, "Great! Let's make it happen!" I contacted our school system's Human Resources Department and got started on the paperwork, which was a more complicated task that I had anticipated, but it really didn't matter. I had made my decision to bring my teaching career to a close and working through the bureaucracy was going to be well worth it.

Almost a year to the day of that last time in my classroom, during the second spring break of teaching during the pandemic, I returned to school with my wife and son. I entered my room, which had now been reassigned to an English teacher, and packed up my belongings which had been moved to the side and the back. We hauled off my books, posters, toys, and other personal items from there and from storage, and then I snapped the last photograph, locked the door, and left the building, without seeing or speaking to anyone. I wanted to leave quietly.

I finished out this last semester, struggling to keep the students moving forward. I didn't make any formal announcement about not coming coming back the next year until word got out, as it it typically does. I can still remember that last day in late May as vividly as my very first one 34 years earlier. There are certain things you can never forget. I finished that last day, trying to impart some final words of wisdom to my students, but not really meeting with success. The "final bell" rang, the students signed out, and I shut down Google Classroom. I turned off my computer. I was done.

When I walked into my classroom for the very time, I didn't know or care what my last day teaching would be like, but I know neither I nor anyone else would have anticipated how teaching would work during a global pandemic. Indeed, these circumstances hastened my exit and made it a much more logical decision to make. It provided an easy and logical end to my career.